''Quesnel'' was a

sternwheeler A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were w ...

first launched in May 1909 at

Quesnel, British Columbia Quesnel (Kee-nel in French) is a city located in the Cariboo Regional District of British Columbia, Canada. Located nearly evenly between the cities of Prince George and Williams Lake, it is on the main route to northern British Columbia and th ...

to serve the

Soda Creek Soda Creek is a rural subdivision 38 km north of Williams Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Located on the east bank of the Fraser River, Soda Creek was originally the home of the Xat'sull First Nation. Soda Creek Indian Reserve No. 1 is ...

to Fort George route of the upper

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

Career

Originally named ''City of Quesnel'', she was truly a home town product: owned by Telesphore Marion, a local merchant, built by local carpenter, John Strand and piloted by local man, Captain Donald Arthur Foster. However, on her launch day, it was discovered that she rode too low in the water and that her hull needed to be lengthened. Shipbuilder Donald McPhee was already in town, having just completed the construction of another sternwheeler, the '' Nechacco''. McPhee was hired to do the work and ''City of Quesnel'' was rebuilt and relaunched under the name ''Quesnel'' on September 2. Among the first of the upper Fraser River vessels built during the era of rail construction, she would also be the last. She served the district for six seasons, until she was retired in the spring of 1915. By then, several factors had devastated the local economy and steamer service wasn't as profitable as it had been previously. The

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Tra ...

was completed, and the outbreak of the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

had caused an abrupt halt to the construction of the promised

Pacific Great Eastern Railway The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

which had been under construction from Fort George south since early 1914.

Sinking

In April 1921, Captain Foster, in partnership with WH Matheson, relaunched ''Quesnel'', intending to resume the local service that '' BC Express'' and '' BX'' had recently abandoned. The local farmers, settlers and miners, especially those between Quesnel and Fort George, applauded her return, as it was a financial hardship for them to be without steamer service, because the rates on other shipping methods were higher. ''Quesnel'' only worked for three weeks before she was wrecked in the Fort George Canyon on May 13. Captain Foster and Matheson recovered her cargo, which consisted of, among other things, a

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

automobile and 100 barrels of beer, and attempted to salvage her, but during the operation, she broke free from the rock she was caught on and sank and was never recovered. The era of river navigation on the upper Fraser was over.

Notes

References and further reading

* * * {{Steamboats British Columbia Paddle steamers of British Columbia Shipwrecks in the British Columbia Interior Shipwrecks in rivers 1909 ships

Career

Sinking

See also

Notes

References and further reading